Forget-Me-Not – A Guide To Being Memorable

The holy grail of most companies is to be THE company to call within their market place.

You want customers to pick up the phone without even thinking about it. They dial, they speak to one of your representatives, they ask a question or present their problem. Your company is half-way to making the sale, and more than half-way if the customer has dealt with you previously and been happy with your product or service.

You can cover the first stage of this with some advertising and marketing. Your website is out there, you are being found from Google or other search engines. Your adverts are placed strategically, and your sales people are feverishly working to build relationships and open doors.

The second stage in the process is trickier to manage. Getting the customer to actually contact you.

If your product or service is complicated and involves discussions, then email isn't ideal. Conversations become drawn-out, lengthy affairs. People lose track of the thread. Other things creep in, and before you know it the enquiry has been going on for 2 months and has covered a variety of topics. You know the customer has an issue with your website, or wants another staff member to contact him, or has a vague idea about another product you offer. What you don't have is a clear sign of the enquiry progressing to a sale. Your hot sales lead is cooling by the minute and you haven't moved forward at all.

This is why a simple phone conversation can be so beneficial.

However – apart from hiring clairvoyants, and tasking them with phoning all the people who might phone you before they actually do, or mind readers to phone all those currently thinking about phoning you, how do you address this?

Simple – by making it easy for customers to phone you.

A simple, easy to remember phone number could be all that is standing between your company and a barrage of sales calls.

Numbers which can be associated together stick in the mind much more easily than others. It sounds so simple we take it for granted. If I asked you to remember '1,2,3,4,5,6' you would manage without too much trouble! But if I asked you to remember '5,3,7,9,4,1' you would probably struggle. If I asked you to recite each sequence after a ten minute interval, one sequence is going to come to mind much more easily than the other. Again, it sounds easy, but there is psychology behind it.

In the first sequence, because the numbers can be associated, your brain doesn't actually remember the numbers at all – it remembers the association. And one association is much easier to remember than six numbers. The random sequence requires more space in your memory, because your brain cannot create a short-cut, and so has to remember the six individual components. The random sequence is more likely to be forgotten or recalled incorrectly.

So, the answer to being memorable is to employ a little bit of psychology. Ensure your phone number is easy to remember, and customers will find it much easier to get in touch. Simple!